by Liana Brooks
“Okay, but I thought we knew that. What’s the problem?”
“According to the original blueprints, this room was meant to be a conference room. They added the electric outlets for the individual workstations later.” Mac leaned over her, pulling up more schematics. He was close enough that she caught the scent of the soap on his heated skin.
Sam focused on the display. “Are you thinking faulty wiring caused an explosion?”
“I played with the idea, but everything was up to code. The readouts from all our scans look clean. A few of the scientists had models in their cubicles, but nothing that should have done this.”
“We know at least one person had a laser near their desk. Maybe they were plugging them in? Or using battery-powered somethings?” Sam asked, turning to look at Mac. He had arms on either side of the chair and was hovering just above her. From the twinkle in his eyes, he was well aware of the fact, and it made her blush.
“Maybe. Has the lab director given you any a list of what everyone was doing yet?”
“No, he hasn’t sent me anything. What are you thinking?”
Mac sat down on the desk next to the keyboard. “Possibly—and this is going to be hard to prove—there was a mixture of gases in the lab that caused the explosion. Remember how the air smelled when we walked in?”
“Anything gaseous or dangerous would need to be kept under a fume hood. No one would be playing with that in the Tinker Lab.”
“Absentminded scientist walks in holding a vial of something, looks for his notes, the gas he’s holding interacts with something else in the room, and things go boom.”
Sam pursed her lips together as she thought. “My chemistry classes weren’t focused on things that went boom. What’s the likelihood of this actually having happened?”
“Low,” he admitted. “We don’t have the air samples all tested yet. Hopefully, that will give us something. My other running theory is that Henry was working with some form of explosive device, the laser that melted the water bottle set fire to the room, and whatever Henry was holding is what dismembered him.”
She leaned back in the chair. “What’s the autopsy say? Do we have a cause of death yet?”
“Not yet. His lungs are fine, he didn’t die of smoke inhalation or superheated air. The tox screen came back clean.”
“Have you looked at his bones yet?” Sam asked.
“For a radial pattern? No. I already told you there was no rapid postmortem cooling.”
“Do it anyway,” Sam said. “I want to rule that out completely.” Henry’s predecessor had killed at least two people with his machine. The radial fracture pattern on the victims’ bones was the first clue they’d had that the cases were linked.
Mac nodded. “Any chance I can get over to see the lab director? The more I know what was in the lab, the better I can work my end of the case.”
She checked the time on the computer. “I can drop you off there, but I have a district meeting. Agent Edwin is ordering you a rental car, so you could wait for that and go by yourself, and I’ll meet you after if you’re still there.”
“I’ll go with you now. There are enough questions here to keep me busy for the afternoon. The cleanup crew is still in there, and I’d like to see what they find.” He stepped back and offered her a hand up.
“You really think you want to be there?”
Mac smiled, cool and confident, a completely different man than the one she’d met the previous year . . . or even last night. “I can handle it, Sam. If I have a problem, you’ll be the first to know.” He stripped out of his lab coat and opened the door for her.
They walked to the parking lot in silence, letting the sounds of the busy building fill in for conversation. An ocean breeze brought the smell of salt and stirred the humid air as they stepped outside.
Mac breathed deep. “I like this better than Chicago. All we get there is muggy smog.” He caught her eye and winked. “Fewer bikinis, too.”
“I don’t have a bikini,” she informed him primly as she hit the auto-unlock on her car keys.
“Does that mean no—” Mac cut himself off. It took her a minute longer to walk around the car and see what made him pause.
Her car was smashed.
The windows were broken, the front end was crumpled.
“Sam?” Mac moved closer, hand hovering over the car reverently. “Did you go to run errands after you dropped me at the morgue?”
“Nope.” Her hands tightened around the strap of her purse. “Parking lot hit-and-run, maybe?”
“A hit-and-run that went through the shrubs and the electric hookup without leaving a mark? I don’t think so.” He bent down. “There’s a note on the windshield.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” He stood up. “Call the police.”
“I am the police.”
“You know what I mean.”
“On it.” The phone was already ringing. “Hi, this Agent Sam Rose from the CBI. I need a patrol car at the corner of Canal and Riverside at the city clerk’s office. One of the cars in the parking lot was vandalized. Yes. Understood.” She pressed her lips together as dispatch contacted a car. “Thank you, I’ll wait.”
Mac watched her expectantly.
“It’ll be at least ten minutes, but probably more like forty. The county only has two cars, and they’re on the wrong end of town.”
“And vandalism isn’t a high priority.” Nor was it bureau jurisdiction.
“Facts of life,” Sam said with a shrug, her hands itching to work. “There are a few dozen cars out here and no way of proving I was targeted. It’s not like I get a special parking spot or have a ‘Commonwealth’s Best Bureau Agent’ bumper sticker.”
“At least I know what to get you for your birthday,” Mac teased.
The note stuck under her windshield wiper waved in the ocean breeze. “Is it bad that I want to process this scene myself?”
“No, it just means you’re you.” Mac smiled. “Then again, I want to read the note.”
“So do I. Then I want to dust it for prints, run the words by analysis, then do a microscan for DNA.”
“I’d start with the microscan.”
By the time the patrol car pulled up, Mac had the letter in the microscan and Sam was dusting the car for prints.
“Um, are you Agent Rose?” the officer asked as he stepped out of his car, his partner following.
“Yes.”
Their name badges declared them to be Officers Ranct and Hadley. And while Hadley was abundantly female, it seemed she patronized the same barber as Ranct, one that specialized in a short, shaggy cut.
“Ma’am, what are you doing?” Ranct asked.
“Processing the scene before we lose evidence,” Sam said. “What are you going to do?”
“Well, we can take your statement and maybe take some pictures,” Ranct said with a note of uncertainty in his voice. He shared a pained look with Hadley.
“Do you want us to help with the car?”
“Sure.” Sam brushed a sweat-dampened curl of black hair from her face. The building had security cameras, most of the shops across the lane had them, too. There were trees between the cameras and the parking lot, but she might catch something. “I need to call the insurance company about the rental they ordered for me.”
“Late for a big date?” Hadley joked.
“Late for a meeting with my boss.” She grimaced, but the police didn’t echo her expression. So much for fraternal sympathy. Stripping her gloves off, she handed her data pad to Ranct. “Here are my notes. Have fun. Let me know if you find anything.”
“Of course, you’re a citizen of the Commonwealth and the county. We’re here to protect you.” Ranct beamed like he expected a camera flash to go off.
“And threateni
ng a federal agent is a very serious crime. It’s going to be hard to solve a murder if the only person trained for that in this district gets killed.” Sam retreated to the welcoming cool of the office as her stomach growled for lunch.
“Yes, ma’am . . .”
A few people in the downstairs office watched through tinted windows as Ranct and Hadley walked around the car, taking pictures. But for the most part, the halls and offices were empty, victims of budget cuts and consolidation. There was some sort of logic behind the consolidation, streamlining all government functions so that welfare and health care weren’t separate offices made sense. Firing 70 percent of the government workers in every district and relying on “aptitude awareness testing” made less sense.
Hopefully, they won’t think to replace me with those two out there.
“Sam?” Mac was waiting outside her office.
“Any good news?”
“Whoever left the note was smart enough not to touch the paper. I found cow DNA from leather gloves, but it was vat-grown and mass-produced.”
“So our vandal shops on a budget? Not super useful.” She pushed the door to the CBI office open, and Agent Edwin bounced to his feet.
“Agent Rose!” If Edwin had a tail, it would have wagged.
Down, boy!
“Agent Edwin, this is Agent Linsey MacKenzie, the doctor you requisitioned from the conference.”
“You can call me Eric,” Mac said. “Everyone but my grandma does.”
Sam rolled her eyes. He was never going to let her live down the fact that she told him he had a girly name when they first met.
“It’s Linsey Eric MacKenzie on my birth certificate.” He smirked, knowing he’d won the skirmish.
“Whatever. Mac, this is my junior agent, Dan Edwin. Don’t scare him.”
“Do I look scary?” It was a redundant question.
Mac didn’t look scary until he switched from fluff-minded coworker to Death Squad, archenemy of Captain United in all the comic books. She’d seen Mac handle a gun, and not just the splat gun like she carried, with liquid bullets that delivered tranquilizers that were absorbed through the skin. No, Mac knew how to handle the kind of guns that came with lead bullets and killed people. His skills had saved her life, but she still found them intimidating. But she wasn’t worried about Edwin.
That’s because he looked scary all the time. He was a towering paragon of mixed Irish-Viking heritage who could crush a man’s skull with his bare hands. But he was still more puppy than wolfhound. And, to Sam’s amusement, he was deathly terrified of bugs. Anything with more than four legs wigged him out.
“Did you call Director Loren to let him know I wasn’t going to make the meeting?” Sam asked, glossing past Mac’s question.
“Yes, ma’am,” Edwin said. “He asked you to send a report and call in this afternoon if you could.”
“Shouldn’t be hard, my schedule’s pretty free.” Especially if the rental agency didn’t get her a car soon. “Edwin, what are your plans this afternoon?”
“Monthly inspections down at the boatyard of Braddock Creek and, at some point this week, I need to drive down to check on our pirates.”
“You have pirates?” Mac looked at her with interest.
What was it with boys and pirates? “They’re not real pirates, they’re smugglers,” Sam said dryly. “They smell bad and have the common sense of a concussed swamp mouse.”
“We confirmed it was a salt marsh vole they had,” Edwin said. “Not a swamp mouse.”
Mac’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “You’re telling me this story.”
“It’s not a story.” Sam sighed in exasperation. “District 8 covers part of the National Seashore: several inlets, a lot of rivers, and more back roads than anyone wants to count. So we have seed smugglers. Anti-GMO protestors meet ships off the coast before they head to a major port, then try to bring them through the national parks. Most the time the seeds they bring are nonnative, and contaminated.”
“They’re crazy,” Edwin added with a happy smile. “They’ll show you buckets of moldy corn and tell you about how the revolution is going to take everyone by surprise.”
“Drug addicts?” Mac asked.
Sam nodded. “For the most part. They’re considered nonhostile, but since they’re squatting on national land, it’s still the bureau’s job to keep an eye on them. It’s easy enough work.”
“They’ll do anything for marshmallows,” Edwin said. “I bring a bag with me and check in to see what they’re up to every few weeks. It’s never led to any arrests or anything, but you never know.”
Sam’s phone rang, and she stepped into her office to answer it—leaving Mac and Edwin talking animatedly about pirates.
Boys.
“Agent Rose, how can I help you?” she asked, as the door clicked shut behind her.
“Ma’am, this is Rachel with the car-rental service. We have your vehicle ready to deliver to your address.”
“Great—thanks.”
Just as she hung up, Mac leaned into her office as he knocked on the door—he hadn’t waited for her to tell him to come in. “Hey, what’s the play here?”
“First off, you learn that you have to wait to be invited in after you knock.” Mac grinned, and Sam just rolled her eyes. “Second, the car’s on its way over.” She stepped back into the main office. “Edwin, if you’re not going to be back to the office by four, you can go home, but check in by phone or e-mail.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
“Drive safe,” Sam said as she shooed Mac out of the office.
“Cute kid.”
“He makes me feel old.”
“He’s, what, three years younger than you?”
“Two. And it feels like decades. I’m a bitter old woman.”
“You’ll survive.” He held out a folded piece of paper. “The note from your car.”
Sam unfolded it and frowned at the two words printed in all capitals:
NEEDS MUST
“This mean anything to you?”
“Not yet, but it will in time I’m sure. Still want to go to the lab?”
“Yes.”
Days like this she missed Detective Altin from Alabama. The burly old man had been a reliable source and helper even in her rookie days when she was trying to bounce back from a series of bad life choices.
To be fair, they hadn’t been my bad life choices, but I was the one who handled the fallout all the same. Someone like Altin had been such a rock to lean on.
District 8 was underfunded—at least in her mind—and understaffed. The way things were, she had exactly enough resources to handle a minor problem, singular. If she ever needed to handle a major murder investigation, she’d either need to beg them off the neighboring districts or rely on the police. Maybe she should bake Ranct and Hadley some cookies, see if she couldn’t buy some favors with chocolate chips. She had a feeling she was going to need backup sooner rather than later.
CHAPTER 5
Time is no longer the enemy. Time is our plaything. A toy we can wind, and spin, and tangle to our heart’s delight. Nothing is beyond us now. Everything, every time, is in reach.
~ Manuel Helu speaking at a tech conference I3–2069
Monday February 27, 2073
Brevard County, Florida
Federated States of Mexico
Iteration 3
Samantha Lynn leaned closer to the mirror to inspect her lipstick. The shade of her red lips perfectly matched the red in the Mexican flag pinned to her lapel. Another year or two of this, and she’d head for the senate. Every step was one closer to the presidential palace in the Plaza de la Constitución.
Her wall screen fizzed, artistic bubbles dancing up into the electric ether until they revealed the face of her second-in-command. “¿Sí?�
��
“We found evidence of the convict you were hunting,” the man said in broken Spanish. His flat northern accent was an assault on her ears. She forgave him. He was an intelligent man despite being born on the wrong side of the border and growing up speaking a bastard language, the child of too many father tongues.
“Where is Gant?”
“The Plaza Carso, ma’am.”
She frowned. “In Mexico City?” That was over three thousand kilometers away by bus, and unreachable by air, at least for Gant. If he’d gone through airport security, she’d fire every single guard at the place.
“No, ma’am, there’s a cheap apartment complex forty kilometers from the prison with the same name. We’ve tracked Gant to the area and believe he’s renting a house under an assumed name.”
“Get the team in gear. I want everyone ready to leave in ten minutes.” Gant was going back to prison, and this time she’d pay to see him executed. He would not escape a second time.
Detective Rose was on the news again. This time she was wearing a deep purple jacket the color of an old bruise that matched the dark circles under her eyes. Her lips were stained blood red as she assured the reporters that everything was being done to return the escaped convicts to their prison cells.
Gant wondered if Rose knew she was about to die.
He leaned back, and the once-overstuffed orange armchair he was sitting in squeaked in protest. The thing was an antique, the stuffing matted, lumpy, and smelled of cat urine. He’d probably kill the old man who rented him the prefurnished apartment with the promise of cash on Friday, but for now it worked.
The doorknob jiggled as the coke addict from next door tried to get in.
“Wrong apartment!” Gant shouted at him.
The heavy wooden door buckled and splintered under duress. Wooden shards flew across the room. Gant stood up, ready to fight.
A tall, heavily muscled man with a military buzz cut walked in with a cocky grin. “Right door.”
